Separate investigations by US tech publications suggest an Australian could be at the heart of the cryptocurrency and may even be ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’. How certain are the claims – and why was he raided by police on Tuesday?
Posts Tagged ‘Satoshi nakamoto’
Tidbits and Notes. Part 258
Posted on: January 19, 2019
Tidbits and Notes. Part 258
“What acts like apartheid, is run like apartheid & harasses like apartheid, is not a duck — it’s apartheid https://bit.ly/2RuTOz3
More than 200 Palestinian prisoners have died inside Israeli jails! . . . Israel arrested 337,000 Palestinians since 1987
100,000 British troops were dispatched to tame the first Intifada of 1936: The Palestinians demanded and were denied municipal elections
En Uttar Pradesh (India), le viol est une epidemie et une arme puissante: les soeurs de celui qui fraye avec une femme mariee’ sont violees, la femme de l’homme qui a des dettes est violee’, les soeurs de celui qui se marie avec une femme d’une caste superieur sont violee’….
In a world where media is global, social, ubiquitous and cheap, in a world of media where the former audience are now increasingly full participants, in that world, media is less and less often about crafting a single message to be consumed by individuals. It is more often a way of creating an environment for convening and supporting groups.
The question we all face now is, “How can we make best use of this social media? Even though it means changing the way we’ve always done it.”
“The mainstreaming of mysticism also overlaps with the broader interests of millennial—think yoga and meditation, mindfulness, and New Age spirituality. With that foundation, it might Not be a stretch to show up for pagan holidays or new moon gatherings, or begin to explore the more serious spiritual concepts at the root of these practices.” (Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz on witchcraft and “mysticore” in the age of Instagram)
The multilateral trading system “receives its inspiration from economists, is shaped primarily by lawyers, but must operate within the limits that the politicians set,” @PIIE‘s Anabel Gonzalez
Israel believed that it could kill and assassinate Palestinians without due judicial process: This wave of Palestinian reprisals will continue until some kind of basic common sense hit the Israeli society
Le plus souvent, on cesse d’aimer quand le partenaire refuse frequement de se battre pour une vie de qualitee’.
La Verite’ ne concerne pas les avocats, la Justice et les politiciens: Les interets cherchent une “verite'” plausible et logique.
People who perceive (separate) their work self from your home self identities are more likely to make unethical decisions.
Maggie Doyne (23 year-old) has a home with 50 orphan children
Une personne stigmatise’ est un individu afflige’ dont on a attache’ un attribut qui le differencie de la caser dans la catagorie “Normal”
Discrimination: Toute distinction operee’ entre les personnes en raison de leur origine, sex, situaton familiale, grossesse, apparence physique, patronyme, etat de sante’, handicap, orientation sexuelle, age, opinion publique, activites syndicales, ethnicite’, race, religion determinee’… No, there are No normal people, we are are all discriminated against.
The colonial powers managed to construct a minimum denominator splitting of the Muslim world in order to decide which countries to ally with. You have got the Shiaa of Iran, the Wahhabi movement of the Arabic peninsula and the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Turkey and Qatar sponsored the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Egypt, Libya and Gaza.
The Carpenters (Karen and Richard), the Bee Gees ( The Gibbs) and Abba were critisized early on by music magazines as too honey. 30 years later, as their bands split and fade away, documented research demonstrated that most current bands have mined their works as the most perfect in voice harmony and lyrics and sensitivities matching early childhood.
Children imitate parents behaviors: Thus, keep reading instead of playing with smart devices
At the end of 2017, China shut its doors to imports of recycled material, citing environmental concerns. That has led to unprecedented disruption in a global industry and thrown the very purpose of recycling into question. (Question: Is China still importing carton and paper from USA for recycling?)
Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-psychoactive compound found in the cannabis plant? It’s cropping up in all manner of products, including lattes, ice cream, and dog treats—even Coca-Cola is reportedly working on a CBD-infused beverage. and CBD is “about as poorly regulated and understood as a product this popular can possibly be.
Small successes fuel courage. You need to be initiated with the fear of failure and gradually overcome it.
Thousands of Venezuelans fleeing their country are expected to enter Peru today to make the cutoff for temporary residency cards.
India unveiled the world’s tallest statue. At 182 meters (600 feet), the statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a leading independence figure who worked with Mahatma Gandhi, is twice the size of New York’s Statue of Liberty. The project was mired in controversy for years and cost $430 million.
“When he introduced the cryptocurrency just months after the 2008 global financial crisis, the Japanese Satoshi Nakamoto portrayed himself as a 36-year-old Japanese man angered by the irresponsibility of banks and governments. His currency would let people make financial transactions those institutions couldn’t touch. So it’s fitting, perhaps, that Satoshi ensured he’d be untouchable as well.” (With Trump financial transaction sanctions on many countries, cryptocurrency should enjoy a great future?)
Invariable positions that constitute the ideological structure must Not include abstract concepts like Freedom, Liberty, Democracy, Equality… any concept that are basically biased and controlled by the elite classes.
2,700 liters of water to produce a single T-shirt?
Apparently, catching cold frequently is the symptom of a transformed constitution that is getting allergic to many items and pathogens that it was previously immune to. Kind of the immune system got set on an old administrative routine and unable to cope with the exponential increase in polluters and human-made poisonous products
Un cadavre est une poche que le mort retourne et vide: Depouiller un cadavre, inextricable achevement.
Pourquoi les proches d’un mort ne le depouillent pas de ses colliers, bagues, bracelets, chevalieres, alliances, piercings et bijoux intime…si la derniere etape est le fumerarium?
Tant pis, les ambulanciers qui transferent la depuoille aux fumerarium ont le “droit de peage” de tout ce que le cadavre emporte de precieux. En ce temps moderne, on n’ensevelit pas les morts avec leurs objets, leurs escalves et leurs femmes. Les archeoogues n’ont qu’a se contenter des temps ancients.
Ce rire meprisant qui decompose le visage, surtout apres avoir affirme’: “J’ aime une autre personne”. Ce rire, qui veut sortir d’une situation trop encombrante, a tue’ beaucoup de jeunes (surtout des filles) et embarasse’ beaucoup de jeunes adolescents pour la vie.
What I say is plain mental conjecture: I didn’t Experience acute emotional or physical hardship. Except acute shortage of money to learn and practice luxury taste.
Trump is giving the Obama/Hillary le coup de grace: totally defeating ISIS, their creation, in Syria and Iraq. The entrance of Syria troops in Membej means that the task of crushing Daesh is transferred to Syria and Iraq 7ashed Sha3bi, the most battled experienced armies in finishing the job.
It is a victory, when an opportunity knocks and you learn something new. Mostly on emotions complexity
It is no longer that important that I fall in love: since I didn’t fall in love in my youth, whatever I dream of is irrelevant
Got to go back to school: set my mind to create a new knowledge discipline
Must apply the experimental mind in architecture: Beauty has to match health and safety
Don’t expect an apology from me: I have got to come to term with myself and forgive myself of all the successive failures in my life. Stay in line and just cross your fingers
Bitcoin founder Craig Wright: Home raided for possible Tax Evasion?
Police have raided the home of an Australian tech entrepreneur identified by two US publications as one of the early developers of the digital currency bitcoin.
On Wednesday afternoon, police gained entry to a home belonging to Craig Wright, who had hours earlier been identified in investigations by Gizmodo and Wired, based on leaked transcripts of legal interviews and files.
Both publications have indicated that they believe Wright to have been involved in the creation of the cryptocurrency.
Who is Craig Wright and how likely is it that he’s behind bitcoin?
Adonis Bouhatab shared a link.
theguardian.com|By Elle Hunt
Other people who say they knew Wright have expressed strong doubts about his alleged role, with some saying privately they believe the publications have been the victims of an elaborate hoax.
More than 10 police personnel arrived at the house in the Sydney suburb of Gordon at about 1.30pm. Two police staff wearing white gloves could be seen from the street searching the cupboards and surfaces of the garage. At least three more were seen from the front door. (White glove in order Not to erase prints on keyboard?)
The Australian Federal police said in a statement that the raids were not related to the bitcoin claims.
“The AFP can confirm it has conducted search warrants to assist the Australian Taxation Office at a residence in Gordon and a business premises in Ryde, Sydney. This matter is unrelated to recent media reporting regarding the digital currency bitcoin.”
One officer told Reuters they were “clearing the house” (Any one wearing police outfit can clear a house).
Reuters reporter Jane Wardell said Wright’s offices were also being raided.
The house was the only one on the street with a rubbish bin still outside, six days after the weekly Thursday collection, and the letterbox was full, indicating that the house may have been empty recently.
Garry Hayres, the owner of the property, now based in Maroochydore, Queensland, told Guardian Australia that Wright and his wife Ramona Watts had leased the property in November 2012.
He only met Watts, “a lovely lady”, but said the couple were “typical tenants. They didn’t look after the place fantastically, but it wasn’t their home. They didn’t seem bad.”
He said they switched to from a full lease to month-by-month about six months ago, before informing him in the first week of December of their intention to leave.
Wright told him they were moving to London; he would go first, then Watts would follow.
The couple extended the lease by an extra week, taking them to the first week of January.
A neighbour said a huge container arrived about a month ago, followed by a small remover’s truck in the first week of December
He said Watts was a “pleasant lady” but described Wright as a “cold fish Craig”.
“Everybody talks on this street, but not with him. I don’t waste my time. He showed no interest, totally kept to himself.”
He said the couple had at least one child, a boy of about 16, as well as possibly a younger girl.
The identity of the founder of the software – known pseudonymously as Satoshi Nakamoto – has never been revealed, despite numerous attempts by news organisations to uncover it.
Wright is involved in a number of tech enterprises in Australia, company records show
The documents published by Gizmodo appear to show records of an interview with the Australian Tax Office surrounding his tax affairs in which his bitcoin holdings are discussed at length.
During the interview, the person the transcript names as Wright says: “I did my best to try and hide the fact that I’ve been running bitcoin since 2009 but I think it’s getting – most – most – by the end of this half the world is going to bloody know.”
Guardian Australia has been unable to independently verify the authenticity of the transcripts published by Gizmodo, or whether the transcript is an accurate reflection of the audio if the interview took place. It is also not clear whether the phrase “running” refers merely to the process of mining bitcoin using a computer.
A spokeswoman for the Australian Tax Office was unable to confirm whether the meetings with the ATO and Wright had taken place due to “obligations around confidentiality under the law”.
There is also no record publicly available of proceedings Wright was apparently involved in at Australia’s Administrative Appeals Tribunal surrounding his tax affairs, mentioned in the leaked documents.
The purported admission in the transcript does not state that Wright is a founder of the currency, but other emails that Gizmodo claim are from Wright suggest further involvement he may have had in the development of bitcoin.
An email to a Clayton Utz lawyer identified as Wright’s lawyer in the ATO transcripts was sent from an address linked to Nakamoto and is signed “Craig (possibly).”
The email discussed whether contact should be made with Australia’s then assistant treasurer Arthur Sinodinos in January 2014 over the regulatory issues in Australia surrounding bitcoin.
The treatment of bitcoin for tax purposes in Australia has been the subject of considerable debate. The ATO ruled in December 2014 that cryptocurrency should be considered an asset for capital gains tax purposes. (Unless the bitcoin devalued?)
The emails published by Gizmodo cannot been verified. Comment has been sought from Sinodinos on whether he was contacted by Wright – or his lawyer – in relation to bitcoin and its regulatory and taxation status in Australia.
A third email published by Gizmodo from 2008 attributes to Wright a comment where he said: “I have been working on a new form of electronic money. Bit cash, bit coin …”
Wright has also claimed to be a consultant for the Australian federal police. Guardian Australia understands the AFP have not been able to find any records of this association.
When Guardian Australia contacted the media number listed for one of Wright’s companies and asked whether Wright was the founder of bitcoin the person who answered the phone hung up
Nathaniel Popper, a reporter on Wall Street for the New York Times, tweeted he was emailed by someone attempting to unmask Wright, but he “didn’t find it convincing at the time”.
In subsequent tweets, having read both the Wired and Gizmodo investigations, Popper acknowledged there was some evidence to tie Wright to Satoshi. “The details of the Wright-Satoshi link are very convincing but where I get stuck is the personality.” (What that mean? Psych-analysing the character of this person?)
Note: Any computer skilled-person with a Decrypting program can use bitcoin transactions. The reason Bit-Coin is so highly volatile is because it is conceived and used as a currency.
Use Bitcoin as a digital means for bartering goods and services on a global scale and nobody lose on fluctuation of the bitcoin value. Once the negotiation of the price of the goods is done, the proper amount of bitcoin is transmitted and then exchanged for real currencies in the same day.
In the face of monopolistic tendencies by multinationals (especially monopolizing the financial transactions), bitcoin bartering system will play the role of global Black market trading exchange.
Bitcoin 2014? Any different from the previous years?
I decided to re-post this selected top posts in order to understand what is Bitcoin, the jargon associated with, and particularly that China is heavily engaged in that business.
With all the speculations about Bitcoin and the exciting 2013 behind us, I thought (India Lightspeed Venture Partners) that a list of predictions for 2014 would be a good way to start this year.
These predictions are based on growth patterns of similar networks, the traction in various ecosystem activities last year and my conversations with various Bitcoin enthusiasts.
So here are my Top 10 predictions for Bitcoin 2014.
January 13, 2014
Bitcoin 2014 – Top 10 predictions
1. More than $100M of venture capital will flow into Bitcoin start-ups.
This pool of capital will be distributed across local/global exchange start-ups (e.g. BTC China*), merchant related services (e.g. Bitpay), wallet services (e.g. Coinbase) and a host of other innovative start-ups.
A large chuck of the capital is likely to flow into start-ups which have emerged winners in their respective segment with a majority of the market share. Building exchange liquidity and merchant network is tough.
These businesses are likely to command high valuations as well. There would be plenty of money available for start-ups trying to solve a plethora of other challenges (e.g. private insurance, security), that exist with Bitcoin growth and adoption today.
2. Mining ‘will not’ be dead (guess it is about mining data?)
A lot of press notes and individual viewpoints state that mining is dead as we are already in the petahash domain and are restricted by Moore’s law from a technological stand point.
I believed this until I heard Butterfly Labs and HighBitcoin talk about how enterprises can potential adopt mining.
With transactions and transaction fees rising, it would be highly profitable for large enterprises to have data centers with mining equipment to process daily transactions.
The medium enterprises, who cannot invest in capital expenditure, would resort to cloud based mining.
Finally, the small enterprises would have to pay the transaction fees, to the network. This fees would still be lower than in comparison to Visa and Mastercard. In conclusion, we can potentially witness investment from large and medium enterprises in mining farms as early as the end of 2014.
3. There will be less than 5 alt-coins (out of the 50+ in existence) that will survive 2014
The open source nature of the Bitcoin protocol led to the advent of over 50+ alt-coins, most of which are blatant rip-offs with a tweak or two here and there. These can be divided into three categories
- Coins which are Ponzi schemes, where the sole purpose of the inventor is to drive the price of the alt-coin up and them dump
- Coins which can be mined easily and can have potentially more liquidity than Bitcoin
- Coins, which are based on a fundamental innovation and can result in specific adoption or security led use cases.
In my opinion, only the category 3 ones would survive.
PPC coin, which has introduced a proof-of-stake system in addition to proof-of-work is one such coin. It is in my list of survivors. It is also important to note that presently, other than Bitcoin, no other alt-coin has shown the potential for a growth in its acceptance network among merchants or companies. This is likely to remain true for 2014 as well.
4. Bitcoin community will solve problems including that of ‘anonymity’
One of the key roadblocks for governments and financial institutions to start participating in Bitcoins is the anonymous nature of its transactions.
This has led regulators to believe that Bitcoin can potentially be used for money laundering, terrorist support etc.
The good news that we have a very active Bitcoin community globally, which is constantly evolving the protocol. Hence, my prediction that in an effort to make Bitcoin more accepted, this community will come out with a solution to ‘anonymity’ that regulators can live with.
One of the ways is it being done today is by forcing exchanges, wallet services and other Bitcoin companies to have KYC practices similar to those of financial institutions. As a side thought – Internet was and is still used for porn. That does not make it ‘not useful’!
5. US, China and other global forces will not be at the forefront of Bitcoin adoption
Fincen, PBOC and RBI’s reaction to Bitcoin in US, China and India points to one single conclusion – we are not going to let a ‘controlled’ and ‘vast’ financial system adopt a decentralized cyprto-currency, which can be anonymous and used for illegal activities…as yet.
Countries which have had a history of currency issues and have not had effective monetary policies are the ones who will be at the forefront of Bitcoin adoption.
With China out of the mix currently, one can look at Argentina, Cyprus and others to lead. These may be smaller as a % of the global base. However they are likely to have much more local penetration and most importantly more government support or less government intervention – whichever way you want to look at it.
Successful internet and mobile companies in the US/Europe are the ones, who are most likely to offer digital goods in Bitcoins. Zynga just announced their experiment. I would not be surprised if Spotify, Netflix etc are next.
6. Indian ecosystem will be slow to evolve; limited to speculators and mining pools
The Indian Bitcoin start-up ecosystem today is limited to less than 10 start-ups across exchanges such as Unocoin, wallet services such as Zuckup, mining pools such as Coinmonk and some other ideas – compared to 100s of them in each US and China.
There is little evidence today to ascertain whether any of these start-ups are going to create a home market or serve an international market. In fact on the contrary, the Indian market is likely to be served by global Bitcoin companies.
For instance, Itbit, a Singapore based exchange has already started targeting Indian consumers. Global services have demonstrated the capability to be credible, especially when it comes to convenience and security by solving complex algorithmic problems.
This also makes them more defensible in the long run (e.g. Coinbase’s splitting of private keys to prevent theft) and poses a big challenge for Indian Bitcoin start-ups. There is an active Bitcoin community in India (about 15-20 people), which is trying hard to create awareness among consumers and regulators. I sincerely hope to see at-least 1 world-class Bitcoin start-up to comes out of India.
7. The use of Bitcoin will evolve beyond ‘store of value’ or ‘transactions’
The underlying Bitcoin protocol makes itself applicable beyond the use cases of ‘store of value’ and ‘payments’. The Bitcoin foundation took a huge step in allowing meta data to be included in the blockchain.
This will unlock a lot of innovation and maybe even prompt regulators to acknowledge the potential of Bitcoin, making it all the more difficult for them to shut it down or suppress it.
As one can see from the current Bitcoin ecosystem map (http://bit.ly/1krEd0Z) that there are almost no start-ups, which solely use the protocol without using the ‘coin’ or the ‘currency’ as a function. 2014 will be the first year to see some of these.
8. The ‘browser’ of Bitcoin will come this year
Netscape browser made Internet happen. ‘Something’ will make Bitcoin happen.
It is still very difficult for the average ‘Joe’ to understand, acquire, store and use Bitcoins. Though Coinbase and several others are working on innovative security algorithms and making it easy to store Bitcoins digitally, it is still not enough to make Bitcoin mainstream.
Hence, what a ‘browser’ did to the Internet, a product or technology innovation will do it to ‘Bitcoin’ in 2014. This will make the transition to Bitcoins frictionless. Kryptokit and Eric Voorhees’ Coinapult are promising start-ups in this direction. Encouragingly, all the building blocks for that to happen – like mobile penetration, cryptography algos etc are already in place.
9. The price of Bitcoin is likely to range between $4000-5000 by the end of 2014
Well, though some people will argue otherwise, price is not the most important thing about Bitcoin.
But given the interest and its volatility, it does deserve a place in this blog post. Speculators have predicted Bitcoin to go upto $100, 000; some say the maximum it can reach is $1300.
Though, I’m sure that there is some underlying basis for these predictions; here is the one for mine. Bitcoin’s price is a function of supply and demand. While the supply is predictive, the demand is less so.
However, the increase in the demand of Bitcoin can be compared to networks such as Facebook and Twitter, which have followed a ‘S’ curve of adoption.
All such networks typically take 6-8 years to plateau out with year 4-5 being the steepest. Though Bitcoin was invested 4 years ago, I would say that 2013 was its 2nd real year.
Given the nature of the ‘S’ curve, the price increase in 2014 is likely to be 3-4 times more than the one this year. Hence, the $4000-$5000 range, where the Bitcoin price is likely to settle down in 2014.
10. Last but not the least – Satoshi nakamoto will be Time’s Person of the Year 2014.
Please read about him here.
* Investments of Lightspeed Venture Partners
Tags: adonis49, alt-coins, Bitcoin, Bitpay, blockchain, BTC China, cloud based mining, Coinbase, decentralized cyprto-currency, Eric Voorhees, exchange liquidity, India Lightspeed Venture Partners, Indian Bitcoin, KYC practices, Lightspeed Venture Partners, merchant network, Moore’s law, petahash domain, proof-of-stake system, proof-of-work, Satoshi nakamoto, store of value, traction in various ecosystem activities
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